One: Blessed are those who are invit­ed to the wed­ding sup­per of the Lamb!

All: We are the Bride of Christ, his Church. We know that he shall come one day to claim us as his own.

One: Let us rejoice and be glad; let us give him glo­ry!

All: When he comes, every knee shall bow and every tongue con­fess him Lord!

One: That day will bring jus­tice and peace; sor­row and sin shall be no more

All: There will be no death, mourn­ing, cry­ing or pain for he will wipe every tear from our eyes

One: The real church will descend out of God from heav­en, pre­pared as a bride beau­ti­ful­ly dressed for her hus­band.

All: We will hear the voice from the throne say­ing, “Now the dwelling of God is with human­i­ty and he will live with them.”

One: We will rejoice in that day for the wed­ding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made her­self ready.

All: We will make our­selves ready. We will dress our­selves with right­eous­ness. We will keep the lamps of our faith lit and shin­ing amidst the dark­ness of this present time. We will not be caught unpre­pared for we love the Lord, the Lamb of God, who ful­fills our life with love.

HYMN#642 As Man and Woman We Were Made

PASSINGTHEPEACEOFCHRIST

FELLOWSHIPCHORUS#2226 Bind Us Togeth­er

PRAYEROFTHEPEOPLE

O God, Cre­ator of our lives and the Lord of all, we thank you for the wit­ness of your desire for us expressed through your mak­ing of human mar­riage. The poten­tials for inti­ma­cy between a man and a woman are mere­ly a reflec­tion of your greater love for us. We thank you for Pas­tor Blessed and Bernard Bird, for their lives and the love you have brought to them for each oth­er. Bless them in this next hour when they shall con­fess their faith in you and their love through the covenant of mar­riage. Ful­fill in them your hope for their rela­tion­ship. May we con­sid­er our own com­mit­ments to love oth­ers as you have loved us in Jesus as the oblig­a­tion we have accept­ed in our choice to fol­low you. May we draw from the riv­er of love that flows from your throne. May we love you first and fore­most, so you can be the source of our love for one anoth­er. We now take this time of silence to lift before you in our thoughts those peo­ple in our lives you have called us to love and for whom we know their needs. (silent prayer) Remind us all gath­ered here of our own com­mit­ment to love you with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neigh­bor as our­selves, we ask in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray, say­ing, THELORD’S PRAYER

CHANCELCHOIRDown by the River­side (with Stand­ing
in the Need of Prayer) arr. by Mary McDon­ald

WRITTENWORD 1 Corinthi­ans 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only mak­ing a lot of noise If I have the gift of prophe­cy and can fath­om all mys­ter­ies and all knowl­edge, and if I have a faith that can even move moun­tains, but have not love, I am noth­ing. If I give all I pos­sess to the poor and sur­ren­der my body to the flames for my prin­ci­ples and opin­ions, but have not love, I gain noth­ing by my sac­ri­fice. You see love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seek­ing, it is not eas­i­ly angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoic­es with the truth. It always pro­tects, always trusts, always hopes, always per­se­veres. Love nev­er fails. But where there are prophe­cies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowl­edge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we proph­esy in part now, but when per­fec­tion comes, the imper­fect dis­ap­pears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I rea­soned like a child. When I grew up, I put child­ish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflec­tion of how life is and what awaits us in the future; when it comes we shall see face to face. Now I may know in part; then I shall know ful­ly, even as I am ful­ly known. In uncer­tain­ty and antic­i­pa­tion of what may come three remain from which I draw con­fi­dence: faith, hope and love. But the great­est of these is love.

HYMN#408 The Gift of Love

SPOKENWORDThe Great­est Gift of God

VOWSOFCOVENANTRENEWAL

Those who wish to renew their vows may stand to respond.

PRAYEROFCONFESSION

O God, we come to you with bro­ken hearts and dam­aged dreams. We have dreamed of love and being loved and while we have known love it has fall­en short of what we hoped at times and we cer­tain­ly have not loved with the same love you offer us. We want to be bet­ter lovers and have our lives filled with greater affec­tion and inti­ma­cy you hold out before us as being pos­si­ble. For­give our fee­ble efforts at lov­ing you and our neigh­bor, includ­ing our spous­es, our chil­dren and fam­i­ly. For­give us the shal­low­ness of our com­mit­ment to extend the grace of your love with our sis­ters and broth­ers of com­mon faith in you. Our wit­ness to your love to the world has been dam­aged by our inabil­i­ty to live as you call us. Free us and fill us with your love that we might love more ful­ly the love you offer us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

SHARINGHOLYCOMMUNION

The con­gre­ga­tion will be direct­ed by the ush­ers to come
for­ward to share the gift of Christ’s sac­ri­fice. Plates are
avail­able at the front to receive offer­ings and tithes.

Gavotte — Christoph Willibald von Gluck

BLESSING

SENDINGGo Now In Peace

POSTLUDERon­deau — Jean Joseph Mouret

INOURPRAYERS

Bernard and Blessed as they cel­e­brate their wed­ding

To have your name list­ed here, please com­plete the prayer cards that are in the pew racks, and return to the office or in the offer­ing plate.